Newspaper Scandal and a Murder

Nebraska has seen many unusual murder cases
through the years, each with its own unique causes. One, in Adams
County in 1892, was prompted by local gossip about a young Hastings
woman that was spread statewide by sensational newspaper reporting.

The killing itself, which occurred on the
late afternoon of February 22, 1892, was not mysterious. The
Kearney Daily Hub reported the next day: "Captain
A. D. Yocum, special inspector of customs, with headquarters
in Idaho, and ex-mayor of this city [Hastings], who is home on
a visit to his family, walked up Second street and, when in front
of the Hotel Bostwick, pulled a large revolver from his overcoat
and, without warning deliberately fired four shots at Myron Van
Fleet, a prominent character about town, every bullet taking
effect. Van Fleet fled inside the hotel to evade the fusillade
of bullets, fell exhausted in the office inside, and died about
forty minutes later.

"The tragic affair is the culmination
of a cowardly scandal circulated in this city and published in
a scandal paper in Lincoln, December 13, 1890, which at that
time stirred social circles from center to circumference. Van
Fleet alleged that on December 4, 1890, Miss Yocum, a daughter
of the captain, and the colored coachman [Jeff Teemer] had skipped
to Denver and had been clandestinely married." Teemer, who
had accompanied Yocum to downtown Hastings when the fatal shots
were fired, was arrested as an accomplice in the killing.

Vanity Fair,
the "scandal paper in Lincoln" mentioned by the Hub,
lost no time in defending itself against accusations that it
had been partly to blame for Van Fleet's death. It said on February
27, 1892: "The story that Captain Yocum shot Van Fleet because
he believed he had written the article that appeared in Vanity
Fair something over a year ago is not true. The captain had been
informed by reliable parties that Van Fleet had never written
a line for that paper. . . . The whole story was printed in the
Hastings papers with much more complete details before it was
even hinted at in Vanity Fair. True they did not mention names
but the innuendo was not lacking. It was also printed in the
State Journal, the Bee and the World Herald, and numerous other
papers, before it appeared in Vanity Fair. It was no new thing
when that paper appeared on the streets of this city."

Yocum was tried for the killing of Van
Fleet in March 1892. While many in Hastings believed that he
should not have taken the law into his own hands, there was also
general sympathy for him as a father who had sought to avenge
his slandered daughter. On March 24 Yocum was convicted of manslaughter,
and less than a month later, on April 15, was pardoned by Nebraska
Governor James E. Boyd. The pardon cited "mitigating circumstances"
and the "overwhelming approval of public sentiment"
as reasons for the governor's action. The case against Teemer
was dismissed on the motion of the Adams County attorney.

Vanity Fair,
despite its disclaimers, could not escape public blame for Van
Fleet's death in 1892. Its editor, John M. Cotton, eventually
tired of the turmoil surrounding his newspaper, and it was discontinued
early in 1893. Its "ominous resuscitation" in Lincoln
was noted on November 11, 1894, by Willa Cather, then writing
for the Nebraska State Journal, but Vanity Fair's
reincarnation was short-lived.